reflectionsbeyondtheglass.com

Quick!  You’ve only got 2 minutes left (or only 14 more widgets available) to get this deal of the day before they are all sold out!  Hurry!

Seems like in today’s fast society of everyone wanting everything quick, we want stuff NOW, not later.  But are they items that we actually want, or just merchandise that seems to be like something that we really want, because they are available right now?

For me, most of the time, it’s not really stuff that I want.  However, every once in awhile there actually are some goods that I do want & I’m finding more and more of them from Amazon.  Lots of places on the net to get a deal of the day, but this good old store sure is surprising sometimes on the merchandise that it sells.  And you can truly get some good deals on these items, but of course, only if you act fast!

Living out in the country, with the stores a distance away, shopping via the internet is a blessing!  No waiting in lines, no travelling.  I can acquire the items I want without ever leaving my home!  That works for me. 

Will you get that treasured or useful item today - right now?  Perhaps… but only if you beat the clock before the timer runs out!  What a deal!

There’s a hot new item out!  It’s called a Kindle, which is another device that can store books and other items which you can read at your own leisure.

There’s other reader devices out there, but this one looks a lot better than the others that I have seen.  Compare all the bells & whistles for yourself and I’m sure you’ll agree that this is one cool toy to have!

They are so popular right now (which is no surprise considering all the neat features that this item has) that if you want to buy it, you have to be put on a waiting list to get it!

Are you on that list?  I am!  Can’t wait to get one of these awesome devices!  You should check out the new Kindle for yourself, and I’m sure you’ll be on that list waiting for one too!  Also makes a super nice gift for that someone special!

Heroes, House, CSI.  Those are some of My Favorite TV Shows.  They might be yours too, as they are pretty popular!  We all have our own ones for different reasons.  Whether we like the stories that are told, the characters within, or another factor, television is a very addicting habit, but albeit, an escape from everyday life in general. 

For those who really have a connection with a certain show, did you know that most networks have their own stores where they sell items for those TV shows?  Items range from promotional merchandise, gadgets used in the shows, props that were part of one episode, and many other neat gifts that remind us of our favorite tv show.

Of course, now that the writers strike is going on, we can catch up on missed episodes, or find other shows to watch for the time being until the new programs start back up.  Just don’t get attached to those other TV shows, else they may collide with your old ones once they come back on!

Official ABC TV Merchandise

Just about every tv network has a shop where you can acquire that favorite special gizmo that will make your viewing experience more real.  A special memorable token.  A conversation piece so your friends know where your alliance or support goes to.  Perhaps a collectible that you hope will appreciate in time that makes a great future investment that’s also able to be admired for now.  That House MD stethoscope is going to be truly valuable one day, I just know it! 

Whatever the case may be, I often find myself browsing thru these places just to see the ocasional kooky items that they do have.  Who buys some of this stuff, I wonder?  Heck, even the WWE wrestling fans have a place to go to support their favorite passion.  Poker fan?  Don’t worry, there’s a place where you can look like a cool high roller as well!  Even if it’s only in your own home with your friends!

Directory Listings are a necessity to provide your websites with backlinks, whether they be one way or reciprocal.  Think about a directory like a phone book.  People can look up the entries (websites) that are listed in the directory.  As with a phone book, if no one is actually looking through it, your listing will not be seen.  This doesn’t mean that it isn’t a worthwhile thing to do however, as every one of these directory listings that you get acts as a link to your website, which in turn will help you get ranked better by the other search engines (which is what doing all this is really meant for).  This is a slow process however, so realize results are not going to be seen overnight.  There are a lot of people submitting their own websites to the many directories available.  What this means is you should start including your websites into them as soon as possible.  Some directories take months to get listed in with the backlog of entries waiting for submission.

To make the process of doing this a bit easier, Brad Callen has a software program called Directory Submitter.  This is a very easy tool to use, and sure beats having to retype the same info in the forms numerous times!  Submit Your Website To Thousands Of Website Directories Instantly   Did you know there are literally thousands of these directories on the web?  Using a program that has a lot of them listed already makes it very convenient!  You don’t have to search for all of them.  Of course, it’s still time consuming to go through the process of submittal, but you can get listed in more directories faster by using a program like this than not using one.  The above mentioned program (free, by the way) has over 350 directories included, which is a great start.  There’s an upgrade available that has over 1700 when you’re ready for it (very inexpensive for what you get).  This program is in my own personal arsenal of tools to use to promote my websites.  It’s also the preferred directory submitter to use as its one of the easier ones to use.

When submitting your directory listings, be sure to pace yourself.  You want the links that you get to “look” natural to the search engines.  By that I mean you don’t want to get 300 links overnight!  Perhaps try to get just 25 a day.  This looks very natural to the search engines, like the owner of the website is building links for his site via an uncontrolled method (such as NOT using a tool like this!).  The nature of any website is to have links coming & going to/from it, so the search engines “know” you are going to have some, just try to keep them looking like they were all done manually.  Because of the backlog of submitted websites, the reality of getting the links will not really be acquiring 25 a day, more likely, you may get a dozen or more every day since some directories are quicker in the approval process than others.  That’s why you need to submit to 25, so you can hopefully get a dozen or more every day.

This should be a daily chore if you want to keep the exposure and traffic coming.  Alternatively, if you can’t do this daily, schedule it into your week somehow, perhaps twice or three times a week.  Just keep it consistent all the time, for the natural look & to make sure you get visitors dropping by your site.

Directory Listings - Get Listed!  Go ahead, start today, and tomorrow, and the next, and so on.  Your title that you use for the directory is sometimes your text link (keyword), so you may just get into that #1 Google spot yet if you try hard enough!

You should always get in the habit of trying to use methods that will gain traffic to your websites.  You Surf, They Surf, We all Surf, as this is what the internet is actually for, surfing for information.  While you are surfing though, wouldn’t it be nice to get some credit for doing that?  Instead of just doing it?  What a bonus, while you are browsing for various things, at the same time, you are accumulating credits that can be used to advertise your own websites!  This is actually a pretty clever idea.

There are many free traffic generation sources like this that are available for you to use.  You can utilize more than one, but some of them have it set up where they are in your web browser & it’s actually your start-up page when you first open your browser window (which is a great method).  You should be doing a little surfing each day to keep a constant flow of traffic going to your own sites.  With the traffic program in place, just set aside maybe 10 minutes (more if you’re able) every day and start surfing first thing when you log on.  No hassle, easy and quick, another simple method for free traffic going to your sites!  You Surf, They Surf, We all Surf!  But now WE benefit from it!

Here’s a fully automated traffic-generation system that can send 1000’s of targeted prospects to your website, every single day, for FREE!  It’s also my favorite one to use, and believe me, I’ve used a lot of the different plans available.  This one takes just 5 minutes to set it up, and it’s totally “viral.”  Check it out and create a free account today!  Get More Traffic.

Since we all tend to just not only spend our time developing, marketing & promoting our own web sites, but browse the internet for information on our other interests, why not self-serve yourself and gain a bit of a bonus via this free exposure method?  Surfing is part of why the web is out their, because people want info.  And if we are going to go looking around anyways, wouldn’t you rather get something for it, since you’re going to do it anyways?  I know I would!

You Surf, They Surf, We all Surf.  And now we can get thanked for doing so!  That’s just another tip for getting more exposure to your sites, and you know that every little bit helps.

My Siberian Husky is just loving it now that the snow has fell & the temps are well…. freezing!  I mean for us, at any rate.  These dogs love the cold.  He’ll come in the house for 10 minutes, I guess just to see what’s happening & to say hello, then he goes right back out again!

Of course, wiping him off everytime is kind of a pain, but it beats having the house soaking wet.  And us walking around the house in wet socks isn’t any fun either.  So he gets hand dried (actually toweled off) when he comes in.  It IS comical watching him do the shake dance after that!  Sometimes I wish I could figure out a way to get him to shake himself off - outside.  That’d be a good trick!

Only Natural Pet Store - Everything Natural for Dogs & Cats

Our rottweiler on the other hand, hates the cold.  She lays near the fireplace & soaks up the heat.  She does the exact opposite of the husky, she’ll go out for 10 minutes & stays inside most of the time during the winter.  Except of course when the UPS guy comes around, then she wants to go see him!  Or should I say, not really him, but his truck… she barks her head off at it!  Guess she doesn’t like diesel engines.

Outstanding Savings on Dog Supplies. Order Your Dog Treats Today!

The things we do for our pets….  it’s nuts here all day long on some days.  In/out, in/out, repeat.  But even with all the craziness that comes along with owning the Siberian Husky and the Rottweiler, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, they’re family now.  Since we didn’t want to have kids, they’ll do… of course, sometimes I think about the fact that kids eventually leave and do chores around the house, while with dogs, YOU have to do everything & then clean up after them!  Isn’t there a way to teach dogs how to do the dishes???  lol.  If so, please let me know!

.

As you can probably tell, I like free stuff!  Free is always good, especially in todays economy.  Free Flower Seeds work great for beautifying the yard.  I don’t mind spending the time to plant flowers, bushes, plants or trees, when they don’t cost me anything.  Makes the yard look better, the wife likes them (well, most of them at any rate), and I suppose adds to the property value.  Not that that really matters, as I don’t see us moving anywhere else any time soon.

There are many places online where you can find free seeds.  One such place that I went to was the Birds and Blooms magazine website.  That’s a really great magazine with useful articles, gardening tips and more.  From their bulletin board website, I posted an ad looking for Free Flower Seeds.  Any kind I specified, I really wasn’t picky, just looking to get something new to put in the backyard.  Plus, we have one of those neighbors where we don’t really want anything to do with him, so I planted an entire row (about 100 feet long) along the bordering side, to serve as sort of a fence.  You see, out here in the country, it’s not like living in the city where the houses are close & you have actual metal or wood fences” dividing up the properties.  No, there’s no fences of any kind, just open land from one space to another.  Which is fine for the most part, as it lets the wildlife that can be found in the country available to roam around from place to place.

At any rate, I was surprised to find so many generous people at that website.  No strings attached.  I asked for free seeds, and was sent hundreds!  Thanks to all those nice people who sent me seeds, I have my 100 foot long border of flowers (ranging from 2 to 5 feet tall!) and various other spots where I placed the flowers.  Now you may be thinking, I didn’t specify what I wanted, so I got junky unwanted seeds, but no, what I got was an assortment of some really nice & cool looking plants!  Cosmos orange, cardinal vine, scarlet runner bean, moon flower & moon vine, ebony shoofly, morning glory, love in a mist, love lies bleeding, and lots more.  Some are annuals, but most were perennials.  I planted some of the annuals, but I figure if I’m going to spend the time working on planting something, I want more of a return than just one year!  So almost all of the perennials got planted.

The Free Flower Seeds may have been sent to me free, but this little venture of mine wasn’t entirely free.  You see, I got so many different types of flowers that I really never heard of before, so I went out and bought a few flower books so I knew what exactly they were, how tall they’d get, the planting environments, etc.  $40 later, I got educated on the subject matter.  Oh well, free isn’t always free, but at least it was a one time helpful expense, so the flowers got planted in the appropriate spots that they belonged so they can grow for a long time, hopefully.

I’m happy now, the wife likes the way things look, we mostly solved our bad neighbor problem (for now), and we’re even getting some exercise out of the deal, because every night after dinner, we walk around the yard looking at how they are growing!  Well, at least we did, now that it’s winter, we’re in hibernation as well….

Free Flower Seeds are very good if you’re into gardening, and free!  After this experience, I prefer flowers to vegetables, it’s much more gratifying and they grow a heck of a lot better in my dirt!

When you have your own websites, the one thing you must also have, is Free Traffic going to your websites.  Without it, no one will know that your websites are even there. 

There’s lots of ways to get Free Traffic, but one easy method that I have found is to sign up at one of those sites where they give you a small amount to initially get you into the door, hoping you will sign up, or purchase, their “bigger” offer.  Of course, you don’t have to actually buy the upsell, unless you feel it’s worth it.  But by joining the program they are offering, simply to get the initial Free Traffic, will get some exposure to your websites.  And if you continually sign up for these free programs, you get (even if minimally) the exposure to your websites that costs you nothing but a bit of your time.  Granted, this isn’t the only method that you should be employing to get traffic to your sites, and perhaps not the absolute best way either, but all of the things you do combined, is what makes the difference between people seeing what you have on the internet, or not.

Get 100 FREE Visitors to Your Website! is one such program that gives you a guaranteed 100 people seeing your website.  They also have a program set up (no cost to join, by the way), that if you advertise their service, they will give you 25 more free hits everytime you refer someone.  Not a bad arrangement for very little work.

For more programs such as the above, you can go to the search engines and find, I’m sure, thousands more.  Some cost to join, some don’t.  With so many different companies offering similar systems, I prefer to not have to pay for them.  Why should you?  Spend that same money you would have to pay to join, on something that will give you a better return on your investment!

Free Traffic really isn’t free, as you have to spend your time doing the work to get it, but at least it doesn’t actually cost you any money.  Plus, once you do the initial setting up of joining into the program, your work for that (one program) is done, and you could possibly continually get visitors to your websites for a long time after that.  At no additional cost, or time spent, to do so.   Now go sign up for more of these!  If you spend a day (or half a day) doing this, just once a week, week after week, you should have people coming to see what you have in no time!

When you live out in the country, you’ve got tons of things to do.  Work wise, that is.  Of course, to keep yourself from going nuts, you’ve also got to have some hobbies.  Mine is collecting die cast cars.  Not just any kind of cars like some people do, but just one vehicle in particular.  The best muscle car that the folks at GM created.  The Buick Division to be specific.  And that vehicle happens to be a Regal Grand National.

What awesome cars these were for being produced in the non-muscle car era of the 1980’s!  With just a 3.8 liter V6 engine, they were the fastest production cars that came out of the hair band decade!  Even quicker than a Corvette!  (hehe!)

Fast, black, sinister looking & in stealth mode.  No one would suspect that this granny looking car was capable of outperforming unsuspecting Mustangs, Camaros, and other so-noted “muscle cars.” Custom Buick

Comparably to other vehicles, not many Grand National die cast cars were made, but the ones that were made are incredible!  A company called GMP makes the best scale reproductions of this one.  Available in 1:18 and 1:24, they offer very realistic detail for something so small.  1:64 scale cars were made, but of course, with such a small size, you can’t expect that great of detail, but for us Buick collectors, they are a must have too!

One web site that I have found interesting collectables at is called simply Buick Grand National Collectables.  They offer diecast, buttons, stickers, and a bunch of other Turbo Regal items.  Speaking of Turbo Regals (which is what a Grand National is, a turbocharged Buick Regal), if you want to see pictures and get specific information about them, the Buick Turbo Regal website has A LOT of cool pics!  I didn’t know so many different colors were made and that website has photos of just about every single different one!  Can you tell I’m drooling here???

Collecting die cast cars of the Buick Grand National is a great investment for me, as I’ve found out that the prices of these items just keeps escalating in value!  And merchandise is getting harder & harder to find.  Most of the time, you can get it on ebay though!  ( Grand National items on Ebay )

Winter is here and it’s time to pull out the tractor so I can plow the driveway since there’s 3 inches of snow that fell last night.  Tractor plowing is actually not that bad, now that I have figured out “how” to plow with the tractor!

You see, I’ve never had, or used, a tractor before.  Heck, before we moved here, I’d never even ridden on a riding lawnmower!  (which we also have now).  The problem was, the plow is actually mounted backwards.  Meaning the curved part is facing away from the tractor, so, in effect, you are suppose to plow backwards!  At least that’s what I was told.  The first few times of plowing the driveway backwards wasn’t too bad… the drive got cleared… of course, so did all the pebbles that were lining the diveway!  (thats NOT good).  Eventually, I figured out its best to just plow forward, dragging the snow out of the way instead of plowing it out of the way. 

Now, everything is good.  Practice does make perfect!  Only takes me 20 minutes to tractor plow the drive, which is about the length of a football field.  Good thing I let my wife drive the 4×4 truck, so I don’t have to get up at 5 am!  Yeah, yeah, I know, the “farmers” get up early & do it, but I’m not a full fledged farmer…yet.  I prefer sleeping in!